


Four People Wesley Didn't Remember and One Person He Did

by orphan_account



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Amnesia, Apocalypse, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-22
Updated: 2010-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 18:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For whedonland's Heart of Gold challenge: for thirteenfluidoz's giftee.  In the apocalypse's wake, Angel tells Wesley about the people they knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four People Wesley Didn't Remember and One Person He Did

1.

Wesley's favorite stories are not of Cordelia or Fred, as Angel anticipated, but of Gunn. Perhaps it has something to do with the storyteller. On occasion, to show Wesley what they looked like, Angel scratches out sketches in the ash and rubble, soot for hair and ruin for eyes and mouths that never smile no matter now Angel curves them sunward. But naturally there's no sun in hell, only a red-violet haze interrupted by pale lightning.

"I should like to practice with the axe," Wesley says after Angel recounts a mostly-true tale of how Gunn singlehandedly held off a squad of Throk'kik'rt demons.

"You're good with all sorts of weapons," Angel says agreeably. He's not thinking of their various skirmishes in hell's outlands, however. Rather, he remembers the axe Wesley used to behead Lilah, how he was haunted by the heady ghost-taste of her blood. Wesley doesn't remember Lilah, either, and Angel has at least enough mercy not to tell him, not yet.

"Do you think he survived?"

It's remarkably difficult to lie to a man who doesn't remember your shared past. "I doubt it," Angel says. He knows what a mortal injury looks like; he's dealt his share of them.

"You seem to think these deaths are all your fault." Wesley's eyes are intent.

"It's hard to escape the conclusion," he says dryly.

"The people who stood by your side made the choices they made," Wesley says. "Surely--"

"It wasn't like that." _You changed the world,_ Wesley said to him, long ago.

If he hadn't sold the world for Connor's sake, maybe Gunn would be alive. Maybe the sky would have a sun. And maybe Wesley would remember.

After an awkward silence, Angel says, "We could spar tomorrow. For old time's sake." As far as he knows, Wesley took care of his own training, back when. But even an illusory connection is better than no connection at all.

2.

Fred is hard to explain. "She was sort of a damsel and a scientist and a survivor all rolled up into one," Angel says.

Not for the first time, Wesley is having trouble connecting the dots. "A remarkable person, then," he says in that tone that means he's reserving judgment.

Except there's no more need. There is a Fred-shaped hole in the world, and even Illyria, imperious Illyria, has gone elsewhere.

So, in spite of himself, Angel tells Wesley about Illyria. It is harder than he would have imagined, looking into those concerned blue eyes and realizing that Wesley's grief here is all on Angel's behalf, not his own. "She wanted to stay with you," Angel says.

Wesley's eyes narrow.

"All right," Angel amends, "she decked me. Broken bones, bruises."

Wesley looks appalled.

"I healed fast back then," Angel says, amused.

"So how did you talk her into leaving hell?"

It hadn't been an easy conversation, and not just on account of the pain. He told Illyria that he had done enough damage, that it was time to save people one at a time. That he was done with grand gestures. That the outside world would need heroes and survivors, and he was neither.

It was a good speech, as his speeches went. Illyria eyed him and asked, "That is an unnecessarily lengthy way of expressing your devotion to him. Nevertheless, it is acceptable."

"She promised to bring aid," Angel says. More accurately, she had promised to raze hell--how setting hell on fire was supposed to help, Angel wasn't sure, but he sensed that there was no point arguing with her--and bring an army of her worshipers to rescue them. At the moment, Angel would settle for better-quality ramen.

"You really believe her," Wesley says, reading something in Angel's face.

"Yeah," he says slowly. "I guess I do."

3.

There's no way that Wesley could remember Doyle, but Angel talks about him anyway, haltingly, in a way he never did even with Cordelia. "He was half-demon," Angel says, "so we had a few things in common. It's funny--he was the one who showed me that the demon in me had something to offer, if I let it. And now the demon's gone."

"Do you miss it?" Wesley asks, frowning. It's clear he's trying not to disapprove.

He has to be honest. "Sometimes I miss the super-strength and super-speed and super-hearing. I'm pretty sure I can do without the super-smell." They've both gotten used to the reek of brimstone.

"It's not much of a reward," Wesley says cautiously, "if you have to spend it in hell."

"It's not a reward at all," Angel says. "It's the life I was given to live, if I hadn't wandered into the wrong alley. Now all that's left is to live the rest of it."

"You've told me I died," Wesley says. He's not looking at Angel, or anywhere at all.

"It was my fault--"

"I think it's a little late to assign blame," Wesley says. Is that humor in his voice? It's hard to tell. "What kind of death was it?"

He could say, _A brave one. A loyal one._ But really--"If we hadn't had a dragon incoming at twelve o'clock," Angel says, "I would have slugged you. Or maybe slugged Illyria when she told us."

"I should have been at your side."

"You barely know me," Angel says: bitter words, and true.

"On the contrary," Wesley says, "I know that you walked back into hell for my sake when you could have left--and I would never have known. Don't think you don't have my gratitude."

They sit side by side, then, legs dangling off the edge of a crumbling block of concrete, and contemplate the wrecked skyline.

4.

"I spent a lot of time thinking that you two would kill each other," Angel says to Wesley as they go about making the night's shelter habitable. Fire is easy enough to find, and food items from potato chips to fruit leather can be found in the oddest alcoves. "Also, her coffee was terrible."

Wesley only looks confused. "I quite prefer tea."

Angel thinks that someday he would like to present Wesley with a pound of really good loose-leaf Darjeeling. As it stands, they drink Lipton because it's what they've been able to scavenge. He can tell Wesley is being nice about it because Wesley puts in two sugar packets and non-dairy creamer as if it'll drown out the astringency of the stuff.

"The funny thing about Cordy," Angel says, pleased that he can say her name steadily, "was that in some ways she grew up very fast once she was out of high school." It's strange and sad having to tell this to the man who brought his attention to this phenomenon in the first place. "On the other hand, she could shop like a maniac and whatever came out of her mouth was exactly what she was thinking. I don't think she ever saw the point of tact."

There are other things he could tell Wesley about Cordelia. For instance, it is even stranger to contemplate the fact that they've loved the same woman, though not at the same time. Cordelia as queen in Pylea. And there was Jasmine's birth, which he still flinches from because of where it led.

"She sounds like a good friend," Wesley ventures.

"She was," Angel says. Maybe it's better that she isn't here to see the rag-ruin ends of what's become of Angel Investigations. "You should get some sleep."

Angel isn't sure who falls asleep last: himself, or Wesley, as the sky breathes armageddon above them.

5.

Here, closer to the heartlands of hell, there are things like flowers, if flowers were made of curling metal whorls and bony talons and elaborate lacework cobwebs. Angel can tell that Wesley is distracted when he almost walks into one.

Angel grabs Wesley's arm and steers him away from the flowers.

Wesley looks abashed.

"Don't worry about it," Angel says. "Hell is kind of a distracting state of mind."

"Angel," Wesley says slowly, still distracted, "you've never told me about--"

_Lilah?_ Angel wonders.

But it's worse.

"There are a few things I remember," Wesley says, "in scraps and fragments. There's a boy, and then I lose sight of him for what must be years, and then there he is as a man almost grown, a hunter of demons."

"His name is Connor," Angel says quietly. "As far as I know, he got out." He has to believe this.

Wesley looks at him, waiting. He can tell there's more.

"He had a difficult childhood," Angel adds, trying to figure out where in the tangle of Connor's life to begin. "He was kidnapped, grew up in a hell dimension, and then the one person who should have done right by him chose the one worst way possible to save his life."

Wesley wasn't stupid before he lost his memory--although occasionally he had problems with common sense--and he isn't stupid now. He can read the undercurrents. "Did he forgive you?"

Angel looks down. "Eventually. But it's--it's not about forgiveness." He realizes as he says it that it's true. "I was angry about his kidnapping. A lot of people died because of it--not right away, but down the line. I have to make it right."

"And I'm keeping you from your task, then," Wesley says, drawing the conclusion exactly backwards.

"No," Angel says. "No. It starts with you. But I'll tell you that story another time."


End file.
